


This shaking keeps me steady

by Boz (Bozaloshtsh)



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-24
Updated: 2010-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-07 12:36:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bozaloshtsh/pseuds/Boz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris gets drunker than he should. Things happen. Originally posted as a response to a prompt on the ST:AOS RPF Kink Meme found <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/trek_rpf_kink/713.html?thread=730569#t730569">here</a> for those wary of spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This shaking keeps me steady

**Author's Note:**

> FOR THE RECORD: First try at the whole explicit porn thing. Be gentle in your witty critiques (but I'm a masochist so whatever dude, really). And for the slow kids in the class, this story is a bunch of dirty horrible lies and probably best left that way.

Chris thinks he might be a little bit drunk.

The car door seems to agree with him as he stumbles into it, considerate in how it softens his slide down to the sticky warm pavement. This is entirely John's fault for letting him drink so much at his barbecue. Obviously John's fault. How could it not be John's fault?

"What the fuck, John?" Chris lets stumble out of his mouth, except his tongue and teeth aren't exactly cooperating with his lips right now, so it comes out a lot more like, "Wahffuck, Gin." Man, enunciation is hard. Was enunciation always this hard? He feels like it would explain so many things.

Like, late night radio announcers for one thing, or cheap phone sex hotlines, horrible high school musical productions -- even hung-over nineteenth century women's lit TAs. Chris lays his cheek against the blacktop, coddled by the shadow of his Honda, and marvels at how tiny, silly drunken revelations can unravel years of highly irritating conundrums. Maybe there's some magical drunk line that once crossed doubles your IQ.

This is an incredibly moronic idea, and Chris pretty much can't not giggle, even if it means rubbing his face against the hellishly hot and dirty blacktop in helpless little jerks.

Suddenly, there are hands. And then a striped tank top that looks either like it was pilfered from the costume vault of _Treasure Island_ circa 1934 or _Swashbuckling Swingers_. And then come the eyebrows, which by that point? Not a surprise. Only Zach could get away with looking like a gay pirate in public while maintaining an unquestionable air of dignity. It's one of the many latest additions to Chris's list of "Truly Bizarre Reasons to Envy Zachary Quinto," but even a little drunk, Chris isn't exactly inclined to think it's a good idea to tell Zach he wishes he could pull off the gay pirate look while still being ludicrously self-assured. Chris isn't even entirely sure he'd ever want to look like a gay pirate, unfounded Quinto-envy aside. That's Zach's thing. At least, he's pretty sure that's Zach's thing. So instead, he says:

"Enunciation is really hard." He even says it more or less intelligibly -- score! He pumps his hand out for the fist bump he so clearly deserves.

Zach raises an eyebrow and slides his sunglasses down his nose, but he does oblige Chris's need for hypermasculine celebratory hand fondling, so Chris can't be too mad.

"Quite the astute revelation for three in the afternoon. Please tell me you weren't actually trying to drive home."

Zach's sweat is slightly milky. He probably took a shower in sunscreen before heading to John's this afternoon; he's ridiculously pale for a guy that lives in LA. Now that Chris has seen it, he can smell it; the sandy metal tang of it helps clear his head a bit, and so he frowns. Weren't he and Zach, like, not talking?

Isn't that, Chris remembers -- but fuzzy, like the thought's wrapped in two tons of chiffon and gauze with carnivorous fairies leading him further away and further into the woods -- isn't _that_ actually the reason he's a little bit drunk? Fumbling through the catalogue of recent Zach-centric events, a drunk-dial two weeks ago at a bar party seems to keep coming up but remains suspiciously vague in the cotton of his mind. He tries to sit up and sort of only half succeeds.

Zach just stands there watching him, face an enigma, eyes like varnished wood for all the emotion they are totally failing to project.

"Are we talking?"

"I do believe that's the common term for opening your mouth while putting your larynx to work, yes."

"No, man, that's-" That's really not what he means. Zach has to know that's not what he means. Zach's eyes start to look a lot less like a polished armoire and more like melting chocolate, and Chris wants to commit mass metaphorical genocide. What the ever-loving _hell_. "You."

"I'm talking?"

"No. Well, yeah. But _no_\- the fucking silent treatment, man." And the "uh" of "fucking" slides longer than Chris wants it to. He's trying to be serious, and Zach is doing a very good job of foiling his factoral, baseline explanation of what he's pretty sure is actually something boiling, and strange, and endlessly complicated. Something he doesn't, actually, want to talk about, even when drunk, because Chris is not that guy.

"A favorite among seventh grade girls. I'm familiar."

Chris gives up on words. Zach is clearly the master of the English language. Chris just reads books, not the fucking dictionary. His active vocabulary doesn't have to be expansive if he gets all the goddamn references. He uses his good hand to jab a pointy finger at Zach before remembering that his good hand was the one helping him lean up and off the tar and stone of the driveway. He almost falls down again, but wiggles his ass in some complicated maneuver he stole from his sister so he winds up flopping against the side of his car while managing to point in Zach's general direction.

Zach smiles, and pushes his sunglasses back up before looking at some distinct nothing off in the corner of John's front yard. "Christopher Pine, are you calling me a twelve-year-old girl?"

And Chris _knew it_, knew that Zach was totally on board with what Chris was trying to say before inebriation and freaking words decided to gang up on him, so he sniffs and gives Zach his best condescending glare -- which really just makes him look cockeyed at this stage -- and says, "Absolutely."

The line of Zach's mouth tightens, but now that he's covered up those eyes, Chris hasn't got a goddamn idea what's going through Zach's mind. Chris is pretty sure half the thoughts he attributes to Zach don't actually go through Zach's mind at all and are some crazyass fantasy Zach Quinto thoughts he makes up partly to amuse himself and partly because he hates it when he can't read people.

"What gave it away?" And, uh, what? Chris blinks slowly -- stupidly, even -- in a wholly unironic way, and almost blushes because he lost track of this conversation sometime around the moment he admitted to himself that he makes up thoughts to pretend mind-read Zach.

Zach looks back at him. "Was it the pigtails?"

Chris has no idea what to do with that, so he decides to be honest. "Zach, man, I think I'm a little bit drunk."

"Yeah, I noticed," Zach sighs, and walks over to Chris's slumped form. He's worming an arm around Chris's shoulders, the hair tickling the drying perspiration on his skin, kicking his whole body into this weird shiver. Zach stops moving and just looks at him. He doesn't need to lower the sunglasses this time for Chris to feel the weight of his exasperation.

"'m ticklish, what the hell do you want?" Chris slurs.

"Do you think you can manage walking if I help you?" Zach responds.

"Yeah, I--" Chris isn't that wasted, of course he can walk. His legs just don't appear to agree with him, so Zach catches him when he stumbles after hoisting himself up from the car. The sun is really bright. Chris has no idea where he left his sunglasses. He's sure John knows -- or maybe Kerri, with her eyes like a hawk and soft determination to keep track of the overgrown men-children her husband invited into their home. Or maybe Karl knows, because Karl always winds up knowing everything. But everyone else present is around back, so he has no one to ask. Zach's arm appears to commiserate with him, winding its way back around Chris's shoulders. He's sweating from the tequila, and a sudden breeze makes everything a little cold in spite of the heat. He leans on Zach a little more than he probably needs to as he starts limping them towards the house -- Chris notes, _not_ the backyard, and yeah, really, that's probably for the best -- because the sun's hot, but right now, his drunk body seems to find Zach warmer.

Zach doesn't seem to mind.

**

It is blissfully dark in whatever room Zach manages to steer him into. John and Kerri have several guest rooms; Chris knows this because he's crashed here before when he's been a little too whacked out to drive home from soul searching marathons of Splinter Cell and Super Smash Brothers, and he'd guess that's where he and Zach are now. He can smell the cedar of moth balls, the stale, unused air.

Zach dumps him gracelessly onto the bed, and Chris feels it bow as Zach scoots around to the other side of him and sits. Or at least, that's what Chris thinks he's doing. Maybe Zach is folding himself into some kind of human cartwheel with his crazy powers of yoga. He doesn't fucking feel like looking.

He must have fallen asleep at some point, because when he comes too, he feels Zach's cool hand on his face.

Chris feels almost like he's running a fever, and he can't remember the last time he was this drunk while it was still light out. In the shade and sanctuary of the room, it's a lot harder not to focus on Zach. On the pieces of their time acquainted sliding around like poorly mixed paint.

"What are you doing," Chris manages to get out. Everything's a little too cold to his system right now, and all his body wants to do is sleep or wrap itself up in a blanket, or snuggle into Zach, or go back outside and lie baking on the pavement.

"I'm checking for sunstroke," comes Zach's voice, evenly, from somewhere behind and above the hand that's sliding from his cheek to his forehead, to under his chin.

"I'm fine," Chris grouses. The hand doesn't stop its fingers from walking all over his face, though, and Chris starts to get annoyed. There's enough liquor still left in his system to work up a good burn, and Chris can totally manage to fist his hands in the comforter and pull away from his mothering paradox of a friend, who he still remembers -- ha-ha, take that, alcohol! -- isn't supposed to be talking to him. "Zach, I'm _fine_-"

Zach grabs either side of his face and wrenches Chris around to face him. Chris opens his eyes more out of surprise than anything else and finds that it's a little like running on a particularly sadistic treadmill. Once you pop, you can't stop, and he doesn't even realize he's holding his breath until he finds himself needing to breathe.

"You are not fine." Zach's voice is earnest and rough, and not at all what Chris fucking wants this side of ever. This is some stupid shit that he and Zach are into now, and it's over some stupid fucking drunk dial two weeks ago when Chris was in a bad place, and he doesn't need this from Zach, no matter what he may have said. Zach was right to stop calling him.

"Let go of me," is what Chris tries for, but it comes out cracked from alcohol-induced dehydration. That's the only reason Chris's voice breaks; it's the only reason he'll let himself think. Of course, Zach doesn't let go.

He just looks at Chris, eyes unreadable for a while, until everything just sort of softens. Zach looks a little tired, a little cranky, almost exactly like he did after the Access Hollywood junket interview months ago. Like maybe he's done fucking with Chris, because he thinks Chris needs a break or some such shit. It stinks an awful lot like pity, which makes Chris burn hotter than the liquor in his blood and his sun-sick skin. He wonders if Zach can tell the difference.

"I don't want this," Chris spits out. Zach looks totally unfazed. "I don't- I don't want _you_. I was _drunk_, drunker than I am now, and fine, yeah, I missed you. I missed being around you because you make me remember I can do this and be smart, but I don't want. I-"

He can't continue, because Zach starts running his nails lightly in circles down his face. Over his beard. Katie does this to him, but when she does it, it feels soothing -- this _burns_ like an oil fire, messy traces everywhere and getting exponentially hotter by the second. Chris closes his eyes in what he damn well knows is a coward move and croaks out:

"I'm straight, you asshole."

"I don't think that's how it works," Zach responds, still sounding tired but now also amused.

And that kind of pisses Chris off a little bit. What the fuck does Zach know about how he actually feels? The one conversation he's ever come close to having with him on the topic was shut down by the giant presumptuous dickhead twenty seconds in, all -- "Chris, you're wasted, you don't have an inkling of what you're saying, you like girls, call me when you can see straight" -- and yeah, guess what, he _does_ like girls, but this isn't about that, this has never been about that, and he won't -- no, he _can't_ let Zach turn it into that as some way to just work it out of Chris's system.

God, what if Zach thinks he's doing him a favor?

Chris is helpless to stop the thought and the hysterical giggles that wiggle free. Zach's been awful quiet for a while now. Maybe it isn't desperate to hope that Zach's given up on whatever kind of elucidating expedition into his psyche -- while he's drunk and helpless, mind you -- he'd had planned for an accosted, tipsy, and overheated Chris. For fuck's sake, they're on John Cho's guest bed while everyone else is out back eating watermelon and pie, and Chris's brain can calm down anytime now. He squeezes his eyes shut, which is how he misses Zach ducking his head.

He does this, apparently, to demonstrate the remarkably effective grounding technique of sucking Chris's left nipple into his mouth straight through the thin jersey of Chris's red t-shirt. Zach's hands never stop scratching his face, and Chris bucks off the bed and howls in surprise before he can even think to shut himself the fuck up because god, he was not expecting that.

Zach's fine with drooling and using his tongue, and it turns the fabric damp and chafing to the point where it stings, even itches a little, but still pulls at something in Chris's stomach and he needs to get Zach to stop this now.

"Zach, no," he tries to say, but it just comes out as one long string of consonants and a hissing exhale. He fists his hands into the fabric below him because there is no way he's going to do anything like cradle the back of Zach's head, not even to push him off.

Chris struggles to peer down the line of his body and gets an eyeful of the top of Zach's head. The heat of his mouth is mesmerizing, and he finds himself just watching, speechless and tense, as Zach lets the fabric go after punctuating the damage with one last tug. Zach slides his face up to nuzzle the hopelessly aggravated point with his nose. It's fucking ridiculous is what it is, but it hurts something in Chris's chest, and it's enough to get him talking again.

"I don't want you," he pleads. He hopes Zach can feel that he's not hard here. The sad thing, really, is that this has jackshit to do with what Zach is doing to him; there is a heat pooling in stomach that seems perfectly fine with ignoring what's healthy for Chris, but Chris knows his body, knows exactly how much he's drunk, and even if he could ignore the emotional clusterfuck of the situation, it's going to take a fucking miracle for him to get hard.

Zach looks up at the sound of his voice, lips wet, the brown slowly disappearing in his eyes, and says, "You're an incredibly poor liar." He punctuates his very true statement by latching onto Chris's other nipple, and dropping one hand down to twist at the other.

Chris throws his head back and grits his teeth -- he's trying to say something for fuck's sake -- but unintentional honesty escapes through anyway. "I don't want your _pity_\- ahn, shit-"

That seems to have hit a chord, because Zach does stop to hum against Chris's collarbone, before moving up and over Chris's panting mouth, wide, wide eyes, and just looks at him. "Who in the world would be stupid enough to pity you," Zach says, oddly quiet in contrast to Chris's breathing. There's a twist to his mouth and his eyebrows that Chris can't place.

Zach's words take a second to sink through the molasses of his system, but when they do, Chris suddenly feels unsure. Zach made it pretty fucking clear that he wasn't interested in Chris' _feelings_ the last time he was this drunk. So, yeah. It has to be pity. If it's not pity, Chris simply does not get what is going on.

"But you said no," and Chris hates how he sounds petulant and exactly like he's four years old.

"I," and Zach stops to lick his lips and look up briefly before starting again, squinting in what Chris now starts to suspect is as close to self-depreciation as the other man gets. "I may have misunderstood both your intentions and the nature of my affection towards you."

He thinks he knows what Zach's saying, but he really doesn't want to second guess him. Not when it's come to this. "You're gonna have to be a little more specific."

"I like you."

And it is _terrifying_ how happy that sentence makes Chris. He's scared shitless by the rush of feeling over every inch of his skin. He's still not sure that makes this okay, since he's honestly not fully on board with the fact that his body and subconscious are apparently just peachy with Zach doing things to him that make him writhe, and so he tries to make light of the situation like the asshole he is.

"I knew you were a little girl."

"Wow. It must be quite the superhuman feat just to walk down the street under the crushing weight of a wit like yours."

And it's familiar, and Jesus, but Chris has missed this. He's suddenly blinking way too fast. Zach's smiling again, but it's a little annoyed and laced with inward intent. He leans down and presses his lips to Chris's forehead, into the lines he finds there, and Chris decides this is Zach trying to say sorry.

"Yeah, well, unless your apology sobers my dick up, this is going nowhere."

Zach pulls back looking confused, and then tries to surreptitiously palm Chris's crotch. Chris almost laughs at how his face falls. Zach pauses thoughtfully, but then starts working open the buttons on Chris's jeans anyway.

Chris stops himself short of telling Zach he wasn't kidding. He's not sure if he's up to fooling around with Zach right now, but he'll admit to being a little high on affection. He even tries to pat Zach on the head prompting Zach to roll his eyes. Hey, it's not that he doesn't appreciate Zach's efforts, but really, he is not getting hard. Zach is not trying anything girls before him have not tried.

"Too drunk to fuck, hello," Chris clarifies, holding all the vowels long and musical, and marvels at how the whole thing turns into a messed-up cartoon fable on irony in his head. It's not getting him down, though, because hey! Zach doesn't hate him! His face starts to ache from all the smiling he's been doing over the last few minutes, and, anyway, he's pretty sure it's for the best if they wind up saving all the gay sex stuff for when he's sober.

"We'll see about that," Zach mutters into the crease of his thigh as he tries to yank Chris's jeans off in short, sure tugs. It's not working because Chris is dead weight on the bed. Zach looks up at him and bites his hipbone. It's a short, sharp sensation, and it doesn't really hurt, not compared to what Zach was doing with his chest earlier, but Chris mouths a token "ow" at him for the hell of it -- fuck he's giddy -- and Zach just grabs his hips and says "up" in a flat, demanding tone.

"Yessir," and really, if Chris felt like being honest, he is a bit curious to see what lunatic moves Zach plans to try in order to trick his libido out of its drunken stupor.

He lifts his hips off the bed so Zach can slide the denim down to tangle with his knees, leaving Chris alone with his thoughts for a second. Maybe Zach'll just pinch and bite and lick everywhere till he's sober enough to be useful. The thought is not unappealing, and the darkening look on Zach's face as he gives Chris's flaccid cock a speculative once over has Chris's hands tightening their hold on the floral pattern comforter like it's some talisman blessed to keep him anchored to mundane reality. Because Chris is so clearly not operating in reality right now.

He's stuck in this pocket porn universe where Zach's mouth is hot and damp and cruel on his skin, where Zach is acting like his friend again, Audrina never happened, and Chris is kind of over the fact that he's not as straight as he thought. He's pretty sure at least two of those facts are due to his dedicating the late morning to drinking himself stupid, but Chris is surprisingly okay with that. Chris is pretty okay with anything right now, so long as he doesn't have to leave the darkness of the guestroom.

Zach licks a wide, languorous line from Chris's balls to the tip of his cock. The air in Chris's chest leaves in an explosive rush. He may not wind up hard from this, but it's still good. The kind of good that aches and makes you want to pull your hair out. His body jerks at the slide of Zach's tongue. Abruptly, Chris is aware that he's not going to be able to let Zach do this much longer without trying to buck and squirm. It's too much and it's not even his dick in Zach's mouth; just the sensation of Zach's lips rubbing wet and curved, slightly shy of the head, has his thighs shaking. The only thing stopping him from kicking Zach in the ribs is his the tangle of his own goddamn jeans, and that only makes it all more- more _something_.

He's so wrapped up in trying not to shove his hands in Zach's hair and push him off that he fails to realize Zach has sucked his cock down his throat all the way to the root in one fell swoop -- which, for the record, is a totally unfair exploitation of the fact that he's still soft -- until he hears the slurp of it, and then his skin catches up to his brain, his eyes fly open, his hands make a beeline for Zach's hair, and his voice breaks on the "holy_fuck_" that rides its way out of his mouth on a whine.

Chris's only ever let one girl suck his dick from orgasm through the near unbearable minutes of hypersensitivity -- when there was just not enough in him to get hard, not for lack of trying -- back to standing orders. It was a relief to finally get it up, and he came so hard the second time, he cracked a tooth. Carla got away with it because Chris had allowed her to tie him down.

He's just _letting_ Zach do this to him, and he _can't_, he can't take it, he has to try and tug at Zach's hair, Zach's ears, has to try to get him off, but Chris is shiftless and weak and running hot, and so it's nothing for Zach to grab Chris's hands, twist them around, hold them down hard on his stomach like the world's most gentle reprimand. Chris can't stop the sobbing breaths any more than he can stop his muscles from jerking at the command of his raw, raw nerves. They're yelling at him to get the world to stop and calm down for a minute. Zach hums around him, and Chris doesn't have the breath to scream; he just grunts like he's been sucker punched, and god, he is _still not hard_, he's never going to _be_ hard, this is just going to go on and on until Zach has worn him down to a shaking pile of ash.

When Zach finally pulls off with a pop and snaps "turn over," Chris does it without thinking. He can feel his nerves gasp fucking _finally_ \-- hell, every atom in his body not dedicating itself to calming the wheeze of his lungs down, so that he's not catching notes on every gasped breath, is rejoicing. He doesn't even notice that Zach never lets go of his wrists, until he's tugging at them, bracing them on either side of Chris, and pushing down again.

His mind just shuts off for little bit, for which Chris thinks he can be dutifully forgiven under the circumstances. He feels his shirt sliding up his ribs – evidence of Zach's initial assault all but gone -- and then everything comes back online and Chris is suddenly, acutely aware that he's on all fours with his ass in the air.

Granted, he starts to freak out just a little bit.

"Zach, um," he winces at the sound of his voice, because Zach's may be a little hoarse from all the dick-sucking, but his is a goddamn ruin. But this is important, because really -- he's had his dick sucked before, but this isn't. This- he _knows_ this position from the other side, and you don't put someone on all fours with their pants around their knees unless they're pretty much about to get fucked stupid. And while he's down with making all sorts of revelations this afternoon about how fine he is with Zach sucking his dick while drunk, getting fucked in the ass is really an entirely different matter. So he clears his throat, tries not to tense, and tries again.

"_Zach_."

"Yes?" and it comes in hot and puffed across the back of Chris's neck.

He has no idea when Zach even got up there, but as if on cue, he's draped in a blanket of Quinto. He can feel the heat of him through the fabric that separates them. His stupid, sun-drunk body finds this highly agreeable, and it's an effort not to rub into it and arch his back. His shirt is bunched around his armpits now, and it's kind of annoying, but Chris's hands aren't exactly free to straighten it or take it off or do much of anything. He tugs up on his forearms just a little, just to test Zach's grip, and gets a playful but insistent squeeze in return. Looks like he's going to have to talk. Crap.

"I'm not sure I can do this," and Chris is surprised at how steady he makes that sound.

Zach tugs the collar of his shirt away, taut cotton now a pliant pile, with his teeth. He then proceeds to open his mouth over the top notch of Chris's spine and does what Chris can only think to process as his level best to kiss dirty and slow, because there's suction and tongue and _teeth_ and he had no idea he even _liked_ teeth this much but, he. Has a point. He needs to make his point. "I'm serious," and it's just as breathy as Chris doesn't want it to be, but at least he manages to say it.

"You're going to have to be a little more specific," Zach parrots, throwing his earlier words back at him, and Chris can feel the smile against his skin and that is just so not fair. At all.

"I've never- I. I don't. I'm _straight_, Jesus, Zach, don't make me say this."

And he can feel Zach shaking against him, but Chris is lost deep enough in his own personal insecurities here that it takes him a while to realize that Zach shaking against him is Zach laughing, and hey. Really. "Screw you, man."

"I don't know, Chris, I think you might be a little too _straight_ to be up for that." And Chris is pretty sure Zach's just fucking with him now, but an hour earlier he kind of thought Zach hated him, so he's not really sure what to think.

"I gave you completely fair warning that my dick was a lost cause, jackass. You're kicking a downed man with your boots of lameass humor, might I remind you, and that is totally not cool." Chris is happy to let his mouth run on automatic; he has other things to worry about here.

"You wound me. Puns are the highest form of humor."

"Stop misquoting Samuel Johnson; it's not cute."

"Johnson was a hater. Donne and Shakespeare found them to be supremely excellent, which is all the validation I need. Besides, that was malapropism."

"Lies."

"I swear, Chris, I wasn't deliberately slighting your manhood. Many men have performance issues that are directly correlated to their sobriety; it's really nothing to be ashamed of," Zach is snickering right now, and Chris has totally forgotten they're on a bed and he's half naked until Zach finishes the conversation pitched low and dangerously close to the shell of his ear. "Don't worry, sweetheart, I'll save the complicated stuff for our wedding night."

And yeah, that was probably supposed to add levity to the situation, but it just serves to pull Chris straight back into his own body and away from the comfortable floating time-out box his ego managed to whip up while Zach was distracting him with shitty jokes. Zach's pants are still on, though, he reminds himself quickly. It's easy to tell himself that matters.

Zach sits back on his heels and lets go of Chris's hands. Chris is really kind of confused and a little disappointed until Zach says, "Take off your shirt." Chris pushes himself up off the bed and then loses his balance -- a little because his jeans are in the way and a little because he's still fucked up enough to be having some problems coordinating his extremities. Zach's behind him and catching him by the waist though, and it takes Chris a couple of tries, but he manages to struggle his shirt off without tearing it. He tries to turn around to face Zach, but Zach just catches him by his neck and pushes him steady and unyielding back down onto his hands. Chris feels himself break out in a fresh sheen of sweat, and no amount of bracing or mental reassurances are helping to yank him back from the awful fucking ledge of anticipation. Zach still has access to his dick like this, and Chris is fairly sure he won't survive another blowjob if he can't get himself hard.

"What'll you do if my cock just doesn't cooperate?" Chris asks quietly, half hoping Zach doesn't hear him or just ignores him because he's not too sure he wants to hear the answer.

Zach gathers Chris's hands in front of him, pushing them together into a mockery of prayer, and encourages Chris lean onto them using his weight. He wants Chris to restrain himself, and it makes Chris squirm because the position is not comfortable and does nothing to calm Chris at all. Zach leans back up next to Chris's ear, close enough that Chris feels the rush of Zach's breathing before he hears it, and asks, "Do you think you can keep your hands to yourself, Christopher?"

And there's something a little mean in that voice that rankles him, makes him almost scramble to argue, and of course he can do what he's told -- if he chooses too. So Zach waits, and Chris breathes, and finally, _finally_ acquiesces.

"Yeah, fine," he spits out and totally means for it to sound like the "fuck you" it does.

Zach takes that as his cue to move and runs his thumbs down the hollow of Chris's spine, pushing the sweat down, and then out and up, over the flat of the small of his back, down the lined grooves of his ribs. Zach just does that for a while, just feels him, and if that's all there is to it, Chris doesn't think he'd mind doing this for a couple of hours each day. Even when Zach adds his nails to the equation, it just heats his skin up in a flurry of sparks. His back feels warm, his skin is tightening, and while it's not relaxing, the edge of it is soft enough to still promise something sharp without grinding him down.

The skitter of Zach's fingers dutifully avoids his nipples, sweeps up and under his arms for a little to just tug at the hair. Chris can't stop the squirm that follows, and it's not like Zach told him to be still, but he still hisses out "ticklish" by way of explanation. Zach just snorts softly and moves on, mouthing the skin of his neck and back to the pattern of some constellation only he can see because Chris can't predict his movements at all. Turns out he can't work himself up to be worried about something when he has no idea when it's going to happen. Chris doesn't scare under the weight of grand inevitabilities, just the tangible ones, and Zach's touches are keeping any of those effectively out of mind.

When Zach's hands slide down over his abs and his mouth lines up in an echo of earlier at the top of his spine, something alerts Chris to the fact that there's a difference in Zach's intent. Chris tenses before he realizes what he's doing and twitches when Zach drags teeth down the column of his vertebra, slick from sweat and spit, while digging his nails into the soft skin of Chris's belly and pulling downwards to match. Chris's neck crumples and he manages to choke down most of what would've been a shout. The back of his head -- the part where the spine meets the brain -- is suddenly really warm, and the sharp drop of his head lands him with his cheek to the sheets. And while the view is blocked by his shuddering stomach and Zach's hands, Chris doesn't miss the fact that his dick damn well _jumps_.

"Unbelievable," Chris breathes, in not a little bit of awe. He's not sober enough for this to be happening, but obviously this is irrelevant in the face of Zach's relentlessness. Chris is laughing a little before he can stop himself, but Zach doesn't seem like he minds. He just takes his left hand, wraps it around Chris, and squeezes a little too hard. Chris's tongue gets stuck on the roof of his mouth and only lets him get out a long string of nnnns. Zach works him in these hard little pulses and places butterfly kisses on his tailbone, on the cheeks of his ass, on the backs of his thighs. There's no friction and would be a giant fucking tease except for how tight a fist he's making when he gets a grip on Chris, and Chris resorts to rolling face back and forth on the scratchy cotton of the sheet in an attempt to get some traction somewhere, something to counterbalance the _ache_.

"The noises you make," Zach's voice buzzes against the soft patch of skin just under the tailbone at the swell of his ass. "When your need is too large for your own skin, when. God, when I was _sucking_ your cock. You have no idea what it makes me want to do to you."

Chris is half-hard now and biting his lips to try and keep himself from falling apart. He already knows this is going to be so much better than when he let Carla tie him up, but the fact of it isn't enough to keep him steady, and he can't even force Zach to get the fuck on with it and just jerk him off because he's collapsed on top of his hands and his muscles are nowhere near under his control.

"You want to know why people are endlessly pushing you? You can't stop yourself from just feeling everything, and that's pretty rare, Chris, I don't know if you know that."

The vibrations of the words against his ass run through his bones and his marrow and somehow go deeper, and it makes Chris stop worrying his lip to grit his teeth. This wholly frustrated sound he's never even heard from himself echoes in his mouth. He doesn't want to hear this from Zach, he just wants to get off. He doesn't want to examine whatever the hell is lying between them; it's enough, it's _more_ than enough just to know that he needs Zach and Zach likes him.

"Shut the fuck up and jerk me off, for the love of God-" Chris gasps out, eyes fluttering shut.

"No," Zach says and his mouth leaves Chris's skin, cooling and damp. And because he's obviously crazy, he lets go of Chris's dick in favor of resting his hands tentatively on Chris's ass.

Zach's voice is steady, but his hands are shaking just a little. Chris notices it the way he notices every shift of air in the room. His skin is so sensitive right now, it feels like he can differentiate and separate out the sliver of warm air drifting through the room from under the door and down the hall outside the screen to the backyard.

So, yeah, his skin feels _everything_ right now, everything but Zach's hands where they would actually _help_ \-- and he gets so overwhelmingly angry in the space of a heartbeat, his vision goes black around the edges, and he's suddenly deaf from the sound of his own blood. Chris pushes up onto his elbows, the abused muscles of his forearms screaming, with every intention of giving Zach a piece of his fucking mind, when Zach licks a stripe over his asshole.

Chris falls back down onto his arms, his mind stuck in a loop of what the fuck what the fuck what the _fuck_, which, since Zach seems to have paused and is now kneading the flesh of his ass between his hands in a distinctly hesitant manner, Chris is guessing he just might maybe be saying out loud as well.

"You've never," Zach starts, and stops, like he's taking his time to feel out the best way of putting whatever he wants to say with that completely obscene tongue of his.

Chris is fine with Zach taking his time, for once. He's totally okay chilling out on the bed and pretending that didn't just happen. Zach spreads him a little and blows air over the wet skin. Chris's shoulders crash together, and he starts talking before he knows what he's doing.

"Okay, see, _no_. I'm pretty sure your mouth should never go anywhere near my ass again Zach, I'm really, really pretty sure about that-"

"Has nobody ever done anything to or with your ass in a sexual context? Because, honestly, that's a little hard for me to believe." And Chris totally doesn't need to see Zach's face to know he's raising his goddamn eyebrows. Chris's real choice here is whether or not to lie about this. He has no idea what response will make him less uncomfortable right now, and his mind is sadly not up to trying to figure out Zach's weird sex logic. He's not really very good at Zach's regular logic, and that's when he's sober and clothed and not the trembling aftermath of Zach's sexual deviation.

"Chris," Zach says and smacks his ass for emphasis.

"Fuck- fine, yes, fingers to finish me off sometimes, but those are _fingers_, not-" and Chris is so not going to say it. He can feel his face grow hot just thinking about it. God, this is a weird conversation.

"Not," Zach agrees generously. Then, after a minute: "No toys? Not even on your own?"

"No," Chris hisses, a little indignant.

Zach lets out a speculative little hmmm that has Chris going against the tattered remains of his better judgment and turning around to look over his shoulder because he _needs_ to see what's on Zach's face when he lets out sounds like that. He gets distracted, though.

Zach's just kneeling behind him, hands running in deceptively soothing circles over Chris's hamstrings. Chris can see that there's a really nice-looking wetspot at what has to be the head of Zach's dick, and Christ, but he can't take his eyes off the way the precome is ruining Zach's light-wash jeans, turning them a little bit dark. Maybe Zach's even already come once, and that's just. A hell of an idea. It's more of an idea than Chris really knows what to do with right this second. Chris's dick agrees and twitches hard. Chris isn't hard enough to be leaking yet, but he wants to be. Will be. Soon.

"Chris." Zach's voice is full of really filthy sex, so Chris looks him in the eye.

Zach's just staring at him, flush high on his face, biting his bottom lip. Chris's throat closes, and he can't so much as whimper. It is entirely possible he'd let Zach run him over with a car if he told him it was a good idea -- just so long as he looked this _motivated_ while doing it.

"Oh fuck," he manages to get out when his voice finds him again. He's going to say yes. Goddammit, but he's going to say yes. It seems silly to feel bitter, but it was apparently really stupid to think he had limits when it came to Zach.

"I think," Zach begins, voice warm and roiling with unknown sediment. It's a kick to the spine, and Chris gasps. Zach smiles sweetly and white. "I think you know where this is going."

Chris is going to let Zach do this, but that doesn't mean Chris wants to. He can't want it like Zach does when he doesn't even really understand what Zach's going to do to him. The mechanics don't escape him for fuck's sake, but in the context of sex, this is just so far removed from anything he'd ever associated with willing pleasure. Thinking about it makes his head hurt and stomach turn. Chris needs to at least try to communicate some of this to Zach before Zach makes Chris loose himself entirely.

"Zach," Chris tries, and hates that his voice shakes, that he sounds scared.

Zach hushes him and strokes one hand over his back. "Trust me, you're going to want to do this again."

Chris knows he will; that's not the problem. He's just worried he'll be doing it for all the god-awful wrong reasons. "Turn around," Zach says gently, out of place given -- well, given everything. Chris isn't totally soft again, but he's lost most of his enthusiasm at this point. If this bothers Zach, there's no indication.

Chris can feel his face doing a weird flip flop -- mouth splitting open into a grin, eyebrows screwing down -- but does what Zach tells him to, rolls his chin back off his shoulder, and looks down the blanket beneath him. He crinkles his nose and leans his chest back down onto his hands that have yet to leave their Zachary-appointed place. He screws his eyes shut, but getting his brain to stop spinning on command has always been and forever will be a hopeless bitch of an endeavor.

Zach's hand retreats from the middle of his back to cup the other side of his ass, and Chris jumps a little, powerless in his anxiety to do otherwise.

Zach spreads him again and Chris has to work not to clench. He's pretty sure he can't do that if Zach wants to actually be able to do this sometime today. Chris can feel him rearranging his weight, but the amused and felicitous-

"So. Fingers."

-that Zach speaks right across his entrance is still a shock. Chris bucks a little under Zach's hands, ignoring the implied question. If the bastard wants him to talk right now, he can damn well ask him something directly.

Zach waits a moment, and then licks him -- slowly, from balls to tailbone -- when Chris doesn't supply an answer of his own volition. It really feels just as weird as the first time, but Chris is so keyed up for it he can't not make a noise. He kills the sob before it makes it all the way out of his chest.

"Fingers to complement slow blow jobs?"

"Yes," Chris's own voice jars him and adds to the pooling sensations at the points of his spine. Zach's tongue flickers out to gently press in against him, testing not demanding. Chris whines high in his throat.

"Did you like it? The slow, blunt push of something sliding into you, lighting you up, rubbing against you from the inside?"

Chris bites his lip hard enough to bleed and nods his head. He won't move his hips. He won't. The muscles of his stomach and shoulders ripple and shift but if nothing else, he has and will retain control of his stupid fucking hips.

Zach spits on Chris's opening and then wiggles his thumbs in just enough to pull the muscle a little wide. "What was that, Chris?"

"Yes," Chris barks out like it was smacked out of him, and his ass feels way to hot. It's as if the buzz in his veins and the sun on his skin conspired against him to make him wholly and singularly aware of that one place on his entire body.

He feels Zach place a ludicrously chaste kiss on top of where his thumbs are holding Chris open and Chris tries to bite down on the ruined comforter below him. He's going to have to explain this to John, and that's going to be one hell of an awkward conversation. He has a feeling Zach won't help him with that either. The sound of Zach's voice gets a low, pathetic noise out of him, and Chris doesn't have a fucking clue what he just asked him. God forbid he be _distracted_. But maybe Chris's cooperation has bought him something, because Zach just bites the flesh of his right cheek. Softly at first, but not for long, and doesn't let up until Chris is trembling all over, until he's assured that he once again has his undivided attention.

"I asked you if you've ever managed to get off on fingers alone."

Chris does not want to answer this question. He's not even sure if he knows the answer to it. Usually, as his mind is hysterically happy to point out, sex for Chris is just about getting off. He doesn't exactly try to keep track of the final domino in the long fluid spill of the things his partner does to get him there. It's so profoundly nothing like the dithyramb of torture Zach's decided to subject him to today that blindsided doesn't begin to cover it.

There's a hand sliding along his decidedly wet stomach before he can figure out how it got there, and _oh_ Chris almost laughs, apparently this kind of bullshit _does_ get him hard. He plans to examine that fact in the privacy of his own sane mind pretty much never. Zach's hand curls around his dick again and squeezes hard, harder than he has up until _just right now_ and oh well shit, because there goes the last of his self control as his hips slip away from him and jerk down wildly in an effort to protect himself.

"_Fingers alone_, Christopher."

"_Yes_," he admits, shouting the word into the covers, and it's still very loud for something half muffled. The laughter tittering in past the glass of the windows is the only thing that convinces Chris that everyone outside is blissfully ignorant of what's going on in here.

"The next time we do this," Zach purrs into his neck, sliding his hand off Chris's desperately slick cock. "I'm going to set up a tape recorder, so I can make you _listen_ to yourself the next time you think it's better to trade a safe lack of intimacy for this. The next time you convince yourself that you're too _straight_ or too _drunk_ for this. Now open your mouth."

Chris's jaw falls open and it's a sincere effort to stop his eyes from rolling back. He gets Zach's fingers covered in his own precome as a reward, and it's the stark inevitability of the situation more than the taste of himself -- and underneath, Zach -- that pushes the first, full, heartfelt moan out of him.

"Now that we're on the same page," Zach continues, biting briefly at Chris's exposed earlobe and pulling his fingers free of Chris's mouth. "And if there are no further objections, I'm going to use my tongue to make you come really fucking hard."

And really, Chris has nothing his hips can't say for him. Besides, words and him aren't really doing too well right now. He really hopes Zach doesn't ask him anymore important questions.

The next few seconds are punctuated by the blunt slide of Zach's fingers back to his ass. Abruptly, Chris realizes Zach may want him to beg, and while that seems like a good place to draw some kind of a line, Zach's pushing his hips and knees up to his hands, and Chris doesn't have a goddamn clue what Zach's doing, so really the first-

"_Please_."

-is out of his mouth before he can think twice about it.

Zach pulls him apart with absolutely no preamble and just fucking goes for it. Chris is too fucking tight for the first few stabs of Zach's tongue to be effective at all. Each one slips in just a little bit, and then just a little bit fucking further, that it just seems horribly unfair. Chris can feel himself open and clamp down and open again. He's so fucking frustrated that Zach's just not going deep enough, he almost considers moving his hands, knocking away Zach's, and holding himself open so Zach can concentrate on prying him apart on the hot, pliable, endless fucking promise of his mouth.

It's then that Chris realizes -- belatedly -- that he's been keeping up a steady stream of "_godpleasepleaseplease_" since Zach's tongue first touched him. Chris doesn't even see the point in trying to stop it, in trying to calm down, or in trying to break it for anything other than his necessary gasps for air.

When Zach groans into him, he bucks up hard and uncontrolled. It's enough to push Zach free for a few excruciating moments, but Zach just pulls him close again and holds him steady and uses his fingers this time to open up Chris just a little bit more, thrusting into him with nothing approaching a steady rhythm. Zach can't catch Chris's prostate every time, his tongue just isn't long enough, mother_fuck_, but Chris suddenly realizes with shocking urgency that Zach's right, that it'll be enough. Chris is trying to think if etiquette demands some kind of warning here, but then Zach stabs in impossibly deep and _sucks_.

Chris does wind up coming really fucking hard. Mostly all over his own face, but he can't find it in him to care since he then promptly passes the fuck out.

**

Chris wakes up dressed, on the bed, and epically hung over. Zach is nowhere to be seen, and it's dark out.

He stumbles out of bed and makes it halfway down the hallway to the bathroom before he runs into John. Chris knows he smells disgusting, but the look on John's face makes it hilarious. Said look is also really not as surprised as it should be.

Chris tries cracking a smile, but his crusty lip stings like hell and starts bleeding again. He winces, and sucks on it, making a slightly more conciliatory face at John. He hopes Zach actually did some real explaining -- and hadn't just opted to walk out of the guest room exactly like Chris has just done, reeking of sex, leaving John to figure out the math -- or this is going to be a horrible conversation.

Go figure, John just walks up to him, slaps his shoulder, and says:

"At least you two ladies are talking to each other again."

Chris must really be giving him the crazy eye, because John just rolls his and slaps a handwritten note into Chris's right hand. John also shows him where the towels are and tells him to burn the sheets before Kerri can go near the room. Chris reflects on the fact that he has a few friends in his life he really does not fucking deserve, and then opens the note.

It reads:

_so take the lively air,  
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.  
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know._

It figures Zach's constipated enough to write Roethke when he should just write "call me." Whatever. It's actually a little endearing.


End file.
